Friday May 4, 2007

We arrived in Lima, Peru about 12:30 a.m. and found our guide from Southern Explorations waiting for us as the airport. We got on a small bus and went to our hotel – a four-star number in Lima’s Miraflores Sector called El Condado. We went to our rooms, which were quite nice (Mother’s and Daddy’s had a sauna!) Oh, by the way, this trip to Peru is with my parents and my lovely, awesome, amazing, fun wife Crystal. We flew from Salt Lake City to Houston and then to Lima on Thursday.

We got up and ate breakfast, a very European-style breakfast, at the hotel. We were in a lovely dining area with lots of wood paneling and art. It seemed very colonial.

Then, we went on a walk around the Miraflores sector, down one of the main roads to the beach. The ocean is about 200 feet down a steep escarpment from the main level of the city, so it was beautiful view. There was a park on one part of the cliff with a big statue of a couple kissing. One area of the park had a sign “Area desratizado” – which means, literally “de-ratted area” – and had a picture of crossed-out rat. I got big kick out of it. “Desratizado” seems like a word I would make up. I guess it was nice to know that there were no rats in the area. Parts of the hillside were covered with green vines, some with beautiful purple flowers. We walked down to the beach along a very steep concrete path (passing a tennis club with clay courts! I’ve always wanted to play on a clay court, or at least see one with someone playing on it, and I’ve got one of those now.)

When we got to the beach, we saw a couple dozen guys out surfing. The waves were probably five or six feet tall, so they got some good rides in. It was nice to just watch. There were guys renting surfboards and wet suits at the beach, which had a rocky shore and apparently a very uneven bottom, because the waves broke at least twice before the hit the actual shore.

I want to live by the ocean someday, partly because it is fun to play in, but mostly because of the peace and tranquility I get by watching it.

After the beach, we went and caught a taxi and had the driver take us to La Molina sector, to the Lima LDS Temple. There we met Sister Glade, the temple matron, and wife of President Royden Glade. The Glades are good friends of Dr. Jeff Anderson, Daddy’s partner at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake, and his wife. Sister Glade showed us all around the temple grounds, including the room where children go when waiting to be sealed, and the president’s house, which is a little home built right on the temple grounds. Wouldn’t it be rad to life right by the temple and to be able to see it out your window every morning? I also bought some clear plastic consecrated oil vials because they don’t sell them in the U.S. for some reason.

After the temple, we got a taxi and went to Huaca Pucllana, (pronounced “waka”) – a huaca is a ruin, and there are more than 100 in Lima. There we learned about how the ancient, pre-Inca inhabitants of Lima built a giant pyrimaid completely out of adobe bricks made from only water and the local clay. The structure was thought to be just a hill in town (it even had dirt bikes and a VW bug driving on it for recreation) until the 1980s, when the people learned it was a ceremonial pyramid. It has since been excavated and partially reconstructed. Our guid, Omar, said the ceremonial pyramid area had been built for two basic purposes: breaking things and sacrificing people. Breaking things consisted of making large, decorated clay pots and having the priest use a special stone the shatter them. The pieces were buried in the ground. The bodies found by arcaelogoists seem to indicate they mostly sacrificed women, but they don’t know why. For that reason, and the use of yellow (a traditionally feminine color) on some of the pyramid walls, archaelogists think it may have been a matriarchal society. I was mostly happy that our guide explained that the place’s two purposes were simply breaking things and killing people.

Lima is very dry – only 1 or 2 inches of rain a year – so the artifacts were all fairly well preserved, such as an ancient footprint dried into an adobe-making pit.

After the tour, we ate a fancy restaurant, curiously named Restaurant Huaca Pucllana, which was right at the site. It was fancy and expensive and delicious! I had my first ceviche (a raw fish dish with onions) and delicious risotto with ratatouille and chicken breast stuffed with cheese and basil, then breaded and fried. Crystal got a yummy pumpkin ravioli dish. Mother got ceviche and Daddy got sea bass, all of which were very yummy. Our appetizers had lots of seafood (shrimps, scallops) and potatoes. Peru grows more than 1,000 types of potatoes, including purple and yellow varieties. We had yellow ones for lunch.

Then, we walked a few blocks to the Indian Market, where we looked at all the souvenirs we can buy later in the trip. We did buy a set of Perudo dice, though. Perudo is a liar’s dice game that is very fun. Then we walked back to our hotel and took a much-needed and much-appreciated nap. After the siesta, we headed out to the streets and found a little café, La Casita. We had fast food, which was good, and for all of us to eat cost less than one of the appetizers at lunch. I got “salchipapas,” which was basically a plate of French fries and fried hot dogs, as did Daddy. Mother got fries and fried chicken wings and Crystal had an empanada. We all had “chichi morada” to drink. It is a purple drink made from purple corn with cinnamon and nutmeg. I quite liked it. Then we bought some churros and ice cream cones. Great food day, huh? I plan to continue that on the this trip.

We got back to the hotel and all played Perudo in our room for a while. I went out first each time, but it was very fun nonetheless. We said family prayers and Mother and Daddy went back to their room. Our room had two double beds, so Crystal and I slept in separate beds last night, because when I am really tired I get fidgety and then she can’t sleep. Tonight, we’ll sleep in the same bed.